It doesn’t take long sitting in the dark to realize how dependent we are on electricity. It makes our lives better - and easier - in so many ways.

Since starting at Butte Electric in April, I didn’t have to wait long to know it’s always a good feeling for everyone at the co-op to help get those lights back on. But what does it take to get them back on anyway? Why does it take so long sometimes? Most people will never experience or witness the work that goes into restoring power. Hopefully, after reading this, you will have a better understanding of the process and the work that our line crews have to do to restore power.

The electricity you use every day travels through hundreds of miles of line using thousands of poles to get to your home. That’s a lot of exposure for something to happen and cause an outage. Just like your home, our system has breakers. Breakers help us reduce line exposure and allow us to split our system into sections. Doing so helps limit the size of the outages and keep as many people on as possible. Breakers also protect equipment on the line. If you’ve ever wondered why your lights blink a few times before going off, it’s the breaker trying to give the fault a chance to clear the line before they open for good.

Now that the lights have blinked, the breaker has opened, and the power is off. So what happens?

At 6:35 p.m., your local line crew gets a phone call. Once they’ve identified where outage is, the line crew leaves the shop around 7:00 p.m. They arrive onsite at 7:45 p.m. and immediately verify if the breaker is open. After that, they start inspecting the line and equipment. Several things can cause an outage, including fallen trees, car accidents, lightning, animals, equipment failure, etc. At 8:30 p.m., the line crew located the cause of the outage. Turns out a 50-foot-tall ponderosa tree fell through the line. It’s off the road, but luckily the pole is still intact. Before they can start, the crew has a safety briefing to discuss the job plan, identify hazards, and make everyone aware of the grounds, their location, and the location of the breaker. After all safety procedures are in place around 9:00 p.m., the crew begins their work.

The wire isn’t broken, but it’s currently under the tree so they start to chop the tree and free the wire. While they work to clear the tree from the line, new material is on the way. They will need a crossarm, crossarm braces, new insulators, bolts, and ties to tie in the wire. At 10:30 p.m., the tree has been cleared, and the material has arrived. In this scenario, we can’t use a bucket truck since the pole is off-road. So, one of the linemen puts on his belt and hooks and starts to climb to the top of the pole. He’ll start inspecting the top of the pole for damage that couldn’t be seen from the ground. He then starts to remove all the broken material from the pole. Once he has it cleaned up, the crew on the ground will start sending material up on the handline (a rope in a pulley that’s long enough to go from the top of the pole to the ground in a loop). At 11:45 p.m., the repairs are now complete and it’s time to go back to the breaker. Once there, a call over the radio is made for clearance to re-energize. They will check to make sure no one else is working on the line and then get the go-ahead to close the breaker. At 12:05 a.m., your power is restored, and the outage is over.

This is just one scenario; every outage is different. This example took around five and a half hours to restore. If the tree had broken a pole, it would have been even longer.

Your co-op line crews are doing their best to get the lights back on as quickly and safely as possible.

We’ve become so dependent on electricity that every outage, whether it’s short or long, can be stressful for those without power. The longer outages last, the more stressful and irritating it can become. I hope that I’ve provided a better understanding of the restoration process so you have an idea of what’s happening while you wait. At Butte Electric Cooperative, we will always be committed to serving our members and communities by providing safe and reliable electricity—24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.